Achievements:

Team Katiana

Our Great Strides Story

Our Team

Name

Achievements

Raised

Metro Detroit 2020

Team Katiana

Join our team and help add tomorrows!

There are approximately 30,000 Americans living with cystic fibrosis. They are moms, dads, sisters, brothers, daughters, sons, friends and co-workers who struggle every day just to breathe. We walk for them. Will you join us? All we need you to do to become a member of our team is click on the "Join our Team" button. From there you can make a donation and start your fundraising.

By becoming a member of our team and making a donation, you are joining a growing group of people committed to finding a cure for cystic fibrosis. Together, we are adding tomorrows to the lives of people living with CF by supporting the search for a cure.

Great Strides is a fun, family-friendly event that raises awareness and support for people with CF and their families.

LOCATION: DETROIT ZOO, ROYAL OAK, MI

TIME: CHECK IN IS 7:30 AM, AND WALK KICKS OFF at 8:30 AM (please arrive no later than 8 am).

WE WILL BE MEETING OUTSIDE OF THE EVENT KICK-OFF TENT at 8 am, WHICH IS IN THE MAIN PICNIC AREA. Come hang out with Katiana before the walk - she would love to see you!

There is no guided path, and no end time to the walk. It is a very laid-back event and once the kick off happens, please feel free to walk with us or have your own zoo adventure. The more the merrier!There is no end time to the walk, so once we walk, you can enjoy the zoo at your leisure.

KATIANA's STORY

February 2, 2017, will be a heartbreaking day for the rest of our lives as parents. Our daughter was 5 years old, just starting her life, and we were told that she was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. Once the devastation of what this diagnosis really meant to our daughter and to our family set in, we had no time to think. We jumped in and got to work - it really was our only choice. We learned how to give her the daily treatments that she needs, became aware of what to keep her away from and tried to wrap our minds around what the rest of Katiana's life would look like on a daily basis.

Our new normal looks different every day. Also, “new normal” does not mean that anyone gets used to it. It means they are fighters…warriors, and they know that they have no other choice but to fight. Chronically ill patients and their caregivers make it look easy from the outside, but make no mistake about it, the gut-wrenching reality of what our little girl faces daily is not for the faint of heart. Aside from it affecting her lungs, CF affects almost every part of the body that you can think of. She has headaches, stomachaches, dizzy spells, weakness and cramping in her legs, arms and joints. It affects so many things, and not only that, most CF patients have cystic fibrosis related diabetes on top of the CF (diabetes that those only with CF get)!

Katiana was out of school so much last year (and was out a solid month at the end of the year due to muscle cramps), that we decided to homeschool her this year. She also learned to snow ski this year and crushed it just like any non-running sport that she has tried. We have added in martial arts to her roster of activities and she is loving every second of that!

She misses playing, jumping, running (she has a tough time running, and that is one activity that she used to enjoy and now does not). She’s lonely and isolated on many days, and still stays compliant to her treatments. Even when she is feeling well, then we have to worry about her catching yet another cold or illness from germs that are everywhere. When she catches a cold, she is connected to her vibrating machine and medicines nebulized through her mask almost the entire day (versus the normal twice a day). What kind of reality is that for a child - or for anyone for that matter? She never gives up and never complains about what she has to deal with.

Even with all of this, we hold onto our hope that a cure will be found. We hold onto hope for a beautiful future for both of our children. We dream about her going to college, getting married and having babies-if she chooses those things. She never gives up, so neither will we. The work that the CF Foundation does is central to the dreams of so many people with CF. Please, help the CF Foundation fulfill those dreams and join us in the fight to find a cure for this terrible disease.

MEDICAL ADVANCEMENTSWith donations like yours, the CF Foundation has partnered with medical researchers brought new drugs to the market - Kalydeco/Ivacaftor and Symdeko. It took two decades and millions of dollars in donations, but it has been doing some miraculous things for CF patients. It may not be a cure, but it has shown to work at the cellular level and is able to correct the mutated genes so that some of their symptoms are lessened!

COMMIT TO THE CURE!Please consider walking with us on May 3rd, at the Detroit Zoo, or please donate to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation through our page to help them find a cure. For Katiana we will walk. For a cure, we will walk.

Real progress has been made in the search for a cure, but the lives of people with CF are still cut far too short. Just 10 years ago, the life expectancy for someone with CF was only 18. Today, with the help of research, it has increased to 37 years. With your help, it could continue to increase every year!Great Strides is a fun, family-friendly event that raises awareness and support for people with CF and their families.

Help me reach my fundraising goal by donating to my Great Strides fundraising campaign. Your gift will help add tomorrows to the lives of people with cystic fibrosis by supporting life-saving research and medical progress. Your gift is 100-percent tax deductible.

"...I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms...” Henry David Thoreau

Connect With Us

Foundation-Sponsored Indoor and Outdoor Events and Gatherings

The Foundation is closely following the evolving coronavirus outbreak. We will continue to monitor coronavirus guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and assess whether we need to change any scheduled events.

To reduce the risk of getting and spreading germs at CF Foundation-sponsored events, we ask that everyone follow basic best practices by regularly cleaning your hands with soap and water or with an alcohol-based hand gel, covering your cough or sneeze with a tissue or your inner elbow, and maintaining a safe 6-foot distance from anyone with a cold or infection. Medical evidence shows that germs may spread among people with CF through direct and indirect contact, as well as through droplets that travel short distances when a person coughs or sneezes. These germs can lead to worsening symptoms and speed decline in lung function.

To further help reduce the risk of cross-infection, the Foundation's attendance policy recommends inviting only one person with CF to attend the indoor portion of a Foundation-sponsored event at a specific time. For the outdoor portion, the Foundation recommends that all people with CF maintain a safe 6-foot distance from each other at all times.